Predictive diagnostics for high-availability accelerators

In Accelerator Driven Systems, high availability of the accelerator is one of its key requirements. Fortunately, not every beam trip is necessarily a failure. For example, in the proposed MYRRHA transmuter, absence of the beam for less than 3 seconds is still deemed acceptable. Predictive diagnostics strives to predict where a failure is likely to occur, so that a mitigating action can be taken in a more controlled manner, thus preventing failure of other components while exactly pinpointing the component that is about to fail. One approach to predictive diagnostics is to analyze process variables that quantify inputs and outputs of components as archived by the accelerator's distributed control system. By observing trends in their values an impending fault can be predicted. In addition, sensors measuring e.g., vibration, temperature or noise can be attached to critical components.